The Many Layers of Emotional and Psychological Abuse Within the 'Family Scapegoat' Role

I encourage you all to read this comment from one of our subscribers

I wanted to share a comment from one of our subscribers here who goes by ‘JB’ that was in response to a post I sent out earlier this week that included a link to an article written by Ellen Barry of the New York Times, Is Cutting Off Your Family Good Therapy? (You need to make a free account with the New York Times to read it, although somehow I was able to bypass that, not sure how. By the way, Ellen did reach out to me while writing her article and I was able to share my trauma-informed view on the topic of ending contact with family, although my views were not specifically referenced in the published piece.)

I am sharing JB’s comment with all of you here because I found it to be a breathtakingly succinct yet comprehensive description of what it is like to be the target of family scapegoating abuse (FSA) and why many FSA adult survivors end contact with family. I say this not only as a clinician and as the researcher that created the term ‘Family Scapegoating Abuse (FSA)’, but as a s…